“Of course, I think that’s smart. You’re lucky to have such good neighbors.”
“Lucky,” Gwen repeats. She feels anything but lucky right now.
“Poor choice of words. I’m sorry, Mrs. Khoury.”
Gwen hugs her knees tighter.Mrs. Khoury.She wills herself to stay focused, but she can feel her mind pulling into itself, going into protective mode. A trick she learned as a child when her parents would rage at each other, or at her. A kind of dissociation that allowed her to endure what was happening without letting any of it in. It did get in, though. And years of therapy have taught her that the coping skills of childhood can sabotage you as an adult. She blinks twice and tries to focus on the detective’s black tie, made of some kind of fabric that catches the light streaming through the living room window. “What were you saying? I’m sorry, where was Anton found?”
“In an alley next to a bar on Wisconsin Avenue. Villain & Saint. Are you familiar with that establishment?”
Gwen nods. “Sure. It’s kind of our local hangout.” The dive bar is an anomaly in Bethesda, dark and smelling of beer, complete with sticky floors and a bathroom that screamscooties. A stark contrast to the nearby rooftop bars with their twenty-dollar mixed drinks, offering Instagram-perfect views. “One of the dads at our boys’ school is in a cover band called the Trophy Husbands, and sometimes they play there. So, yeah. We’ve been. Was Anton there last night?”
“We’re not sure if he ever went inside the bar or not,” Salazar says. “Did he mention heading there?”
“No.” A vivid image of Anton stumbling down the alley between the Bethesda Farm Women’s Market and the bar springs to her mind. “So, someone hit him with their car in the alley? Was it a hit-and-run?”
The detective shifts in his seat. “It looks like he was hit deliberately.”
She tries to swallow, but her throat refuses. “How can you tell that?”
The detective shakes his head. “I’m not at liberty to go into the details, but he was struck more than once. I know this is incredibly upsetting to hear, but your husband’s death is being investigated as a homicide.”
“Homicide.” Gwen repeats the word, a numbness settling on her. “You mean he was murdered.”
Gwen grabs a throw pillow and squeezes it to her chest.This can’t be real.She rocks back and forth, trying to stay here in this room, in this moment, when every fiber of her is screaming for escape.
The detective flips open a small notebook. “Do you have any idea what he might have been doing in that alley last night? Was he headed to the bar?”
“Umm, I don’t know.” She looks up at him, wondering how he can do this, sit in people’s living rooms and talk about death so calmly.Focus, Gwen tells herself. “Maybe he went there to get a drink. I went to bed right after the kids did.”
“Did he do that often? Head out to drink after you and the kids have gone to bed?”
Gwen detects a hint of judgment in the man’s voice. She glances at his hand, at the gold band on his ring finger. He’s married. Does he cheat on his wife? Lie to her? Do they get into knock-down, drag-out fights? Or is he one of those insufferable types who calls his spouse his best friend and who never goes to bed mad?
“Sometimes,” Gwen says. “Like I said, there’s a band we likethat plays there. Anton likes live music.” She’s repeating herself. And it’s not even true. Why did she say that? She was the one who dragged him out to see the Trophy Husbands last fall. A large group of parents from the school went. But Anton sulked in the corner, nursing a drink while she, Aimee, Lisa, and some other moms danced to covers of the Police and Matchbox Twenty.
“Was that band playing last night?”
“I don’t think so,” she says. “But I’m not sure.”
“We can check on that. Might he have been meeting someone?”
“No. I mean, not that I know of. I didn’t even know he had gone out.” Her first real lie. She almost expects the detective’s head to pop up, as if he might be a human lie detector. But he keeps scribbling in his pad.
“Your husband taught creative writing at American University. Could he have been meeting a student? Or another faculty member?”
Gwen is startled that Salazar knows about Anton’s job. But why should she be? A quick online search of Anton Khoury brings up his book and his position at the university. It might have been the first thing the detective did when they found his body and his ID. Isn’t that what everyone does when they meet someone? Google them. Why would the police be any different? She wonders what else they could have gleaned from their online search.
“I doubt it.”
“And everything was all right at work, no run-ins? No disgruntled students?”
Gwen shakes her head. “No. His students love him. And he gets along with everyone at work.”
“What about money?” Salazar looks around the room, taking in the minimalist but expensive décor. He can’t know they are sitting on a modular sofa that costs fifteen thousand dollars. She had bought it when Anton was at the height of his fame.Gwen hadn’t been careful about money when they were flush. She never imagined that they might run out.
“What about it?”
“Writing isn’t exactly lucrative, is it, Mrs. Khoury?”